The start of the group presentations!

This week marked the start of the group presentations. It was a pretty interesting, all the groups presented on really diverse topics ranging from GM food, to e-dating! There were many things I learnt that day, be it an appropriate style of presentation or new knowledge that I didn't previously know. Here are my thoughts on some of them:

Group A: Come-buy (Topic: E-commerce)
Introduction:
This group presented the concept of how business has evolved from the brick and mortar concept of traditional face-to-face communication between the business and the consumer, to a now more accessible means of communication anytime, anywhere through the advent of the internet.


Presentation style:
The way in which the group presented their material was really interesting, using the template of an actual online shop to actually showcase their project. However, I felt that even though it was informative, the presentation was too cluttered with words. Perhaps more succinct sentences to capture the gist of each portion would have been better.

Key takeaways:
The internet revolutionized the basic mode of communication between people, and thus its impacts are far-reaching and in many different areas. Whats even more intriguing is the next step in e-commerce, is the possible utilization of smell over the internet to sell their products! Of course, there are always trade-offs with every innovation. With increasing accessibility to one another, issues such as privacy and internet security is becoming a bigger threat to handle.

Group B: Where love and technology coalesce (Topic: E-dating)
Introduction:
The topic for this group was rather interesting and rather controversial. Love on the internet has always been looked down upon, and still remains generally unacceptable to certain societies. It was an interesting topic to touch on, and boy was I surprised.

Presentation style:
I feel that this group has the best presenters of the session, hands down. They were confident and articulate, and were able to engage the audience as well. Their content also had substance, but it was slightly cluttered once again.

Key take aways:
As the name suggests, the project was mainly about how the internet revolutionized and popularized the use of social media as a means of communication. This project shows how society's acceptance of technology has slowly grown over the years, it is now all right to find love online when compared to decades ago. The social-moral implications of online dating have decreased over the years, as society's perception of acceptable norms change and mature as time goes by.

Group C: Kinetic Tech (Topic: Kinetic Technologies)
Introduction:
My group presented on the topic of exciting and upcoming kinetic technologies that are expected to hit the market in the near future. We looked at how the methods of harnessing kinetic energy has changed over the years.

Key take aways:
I will not talk about the presentation style, since it is my group and it is hard to give my opinion. I would say that the key take away of my project would be how renewable energy is slowly taking the spotlight, and more attention is turned towards sources such as kinetic energy. As such, fossil fuels will become relatively inefficient when compared to renewable energy, and we will start to value renewable energy more. With these changes, it is highly likely that kinetic energy can actually become a commercially viable source of renewable energy that is able to be manufactured on an individual scale where every individual could actually generate their own energy.

Group D: Superman's Diet (Topic: GM Foods)
Introduction:
The group presented on how GM foods is actually among us, and the current problems that it faces, such as poor food labeling and GM food being regarded as a social taboo. They also looked at how GM food is actually an integral part in solving the problems of the future.

Presentation style:
The group had clear articulate presenters, with an interesting video which they made themselves, and even brought "rice" to the class! I personally felt that this group might not have had the most interesting topic, but they had the most interesting way of presenting it.

Key take aways:
Personally, I felt that societal norms should not be a black-and-white answer when approaching each emerging technology. We have to weigh the benefits to society versus the social implications it might have, and this is especially crucial in GM food, which might the solution to our food woes.


Overall, I would rate this session a 9/10, for many interesting innovations which I had never given a second thought about.